One of my favorite things to do with my son is drive through a rural area at late evening during summer when crop fields are bursting and not yet harvested and the sky in the west is orange-going-red and it smells like late summer.
Iāve always been partial to rural areas, but my love of farm country developed when I was a reporter/photographer for Shaw Suburban Media and covered DeKalb County, most of which, as many of you (or all of you) know is farmland.
Covering a rural area is vastly different than covering a metropolitan or suburban beat in that there are miles upon miles between assignments (and the time to travel them needs to be taken into account when planning interviews and shoots). In my time at Shaw, the longest I ever traveled between assignments was 62 miles one way. To go from the newsroom to the assignment and back was 124 miles, that was after I already drove 40 miles from my home to the office. Then I drove that same forty back home at the end of the day. That day, I totaled approximately 204 miles of travel to take a few photos and conduct an interview that lasted about 20 minutes.
But I didnāt mind. I loved it. I loved the open road in summer (and winter). And all the seasons to be exact. I loved watching storms come in, the sun go down, the sides of barns turn gold in the evening or blue on winter mornings. I also loved the peace and quiet. You could get lost in that type of quiet…sometimes too lost and realize you went from 50mph to about 75 without realizing.
During these trips, I took some amazing landscape photos for myself. I always had time to stop and shoot a bit for me and thatās what I found most enjoyable. There was no newsroom or editor (and I had no complaints for either, I loved both), just me and my camera, which sat like an obedient and ever-loyal dog on the passenger seat, waiting.
Those days are long gone now, not that I canāt get them back, but itās under my own employ and time and that for some reason hits different. Iām not sure why.
But I still enjoy times like this with my son.
The other night, we got in the car and went on a mini-excursion around Huntley, and I took a moment to pull out my phone (which is nowhere near as enjoyable or fulfilling as the heft of a āreal,ā battered-as-an-old-war-horse camera but enjoyable nonetheless) and take a few shots wherever we pulled over alongside the road.
Twice, I took photos of areas that struck me as recognizable Huntley locations but probably very difficult to place without context and it got me wondering how many Sun Day (or My Huntley News) readers would be able to guess where these photos were taken. Iām sure someday weāll run this game as promotion with giveaways, but for the sake of keeping it simple and clean (like my long-ago drives through the countryside), letās see if we can just make this fun.
So take a look at the two pictures here and tell me if you can guess where these were taken. Email me at chris@mysundaynews.com with your guesses.
